Perez, Vergne penalised for Austin moves

Sergio Perez and Jean-Eric Vergne have been penalised for incidents in the United States Grand Prix at Austin.

Perez hit the back of Kimi Raikkonen on the opening lap and the incident also resulted in him hitting Sauber's Adrian Sutil, causing terminal damage to the German's car.

Stewards deemed that Perez was at fault and handed him a seven place grid penalty for next weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Perez was also handed two penalty points, his first of the season.

Vergne was battling with Romain Grosjean into Turn 1 and he made an assertive move on his compatriot, which caused damage to the Lotus.

Vergne finished the race in ninth place but was hit with a five second penalty, which dropped him to 10th place and elevated Pastor Maldonado to ninth.

Grosjean was unhappy with Vergne's move.

"Fighting with Jenson Button was very very tight but definitely good fun," he said. "It was less amusing with Jean-Eric though, he broke my front wing and he broke my rear floor which made the car pretty difficult to drive afterwards. I wasn’t very happy about that as the incident cost me eighth."